The chess game between the Church and China

Following Bishop Fan’s death, the future of one of China’s most important dioceses is becoming the testing ground for the potential change in course in China-Holy See relations

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Pubblicato il
19/03/2014

Ultima modifica il 19/03/2014 alle ore 19:28

The funeral of Giuseppe Fan Zhongliang - the 96-year-old Jesuit priest who died last Sunday in the apartment where he had lived under house arrest for decades – is this Saturday. The Chinese authorities never recognised his Episcopal ordination which was celebrated illicitly, but with the Holy See’s approval, back in 1985. When he died, Chinese officials tried to seize the bishop’s purple biretta, a visible sign of his Episcopal dignity but gave it back after insistent requests from Fan’s friends. At least two thousand faithful are expected to attend the bishop’s funeral, which should be celebrated by Fr. Giuseppe Zhu Yude (a friend and colleague of Fan’s) at the Yishan Funeral Home in Shanghai.

After Fan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he spent the last fifteen years at least living under house arrest in his Shanhai apartment. But in the eyes of the Holy See, he was the real Titular Bishop of the diocese of Shanghai. His fellow Jesuit, Aloysius Jin Luxian, who was ordained bishop of the same city in 1985 with the government’s approval but not the Holy See’s, only received his legitimate Episcopal ordination from the Holy See in 2004. However, to ensure all was in order from a Canonical points of view, he was given the title of “Coadjutor Bishop”.

Jin died about a year ago. Now that Fan has gone too, China and the Holy See are faced with the difficult task of getting China’s most important Catholic diocese out of the Canonical and pastoral tangle it has found itself in over the past two years or so. Everything started when Auxiliary Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who was meant to take over from Fan and Jin – thereby healing divisions between the “official” Catholic community and the “underground” one on a Canonical level –, was punished by the Chinese College of Bishops, which forbade him to continue his Episcopal ministry and suspended him from publicly exercising the priesthood for two years. The Chinese College of Cardinals is controlled by the Chinese authorities and not recognised by the Holy See. The reason for this punishment was that on the day of his ordination, Bishop Ma Daqin used certain expressions which sounded as though he was distancing himself from the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (the body used by the Chinese authorities to lead the Catholic Church “from the inside”).

The lives of the two Jesuits Jin and Fan – whose deaths came just a few months apart – and the impasse which the diocese of Shanghai currently finds itself in are reflections of the many trials and tribulations the Church in the former “Celestial Empire” has suffered. The cause of this long struggle lies in the religious policies imposed by the civil powers. And also, partly, in the more recent unusual clericalist attitudes that are disfiguring the face of the Catholic Church beyond the Great Wall as well.

The Maoist strategy back in 1950’s Shanghai, was initially to separate the Chinese Church from any visible communion with the Successor of Peter by staging one of the most dramatic operations ever: On 8 September 1955, more than four hundred people, including Ignatius Gong Pinmei, all priests who collaborated with him closely and almost all members of the Legion of Mary – which was accused of being a paramilitary group financed by capitalist powers - were rounded up and put in prison. The two young friends Aloysius Jin and Giuseppe Fan, both Jesuits like Francis, were among the individuals arrested. Their bishop trusted both of them: the first was made rector of the major seminary and the second was put in charge of the minor seminary. After the terrible years of the cultural Revolution and having spent almost 15 years in prison, Jin and Fan were also released along with thousands of priests, religious and faithful in the early eighties: Deng Xiaoping’s China was reopening Churches, inviting priests, nuns and bishops to resume their positions, albeit under strict political surveillance.

That’s when they went their separate ways. Jin agreed to take up the position as rector of the seminary. In 1985 he had been ordained Auxiliary Bishop of Shanghai with the Chinese government’s permission but not the Holy See’s and in 1988 he even took over the leadership of the diocese while Gong Pinmei who was the legitimate Titular Bishop remained under house arrest (his exile in Connecticut began in May that year).

Fan refused to collaborate with the “patriotic” bodies that the regime was imposing as a means of controlling Church life. In 1985 he was ordained bishop illegally and the Vatican recognised him as Gong Pinmei’s only legitimate successor after Pinmei’s death in 2000.

The “underground” Catholic communities which continued to pray the rosary and celebrate mass behind closed doors, in private homes, steering clear of the government-controlled churches that were springing up around the place, gathered around Fan. Jin in the meantime was getting all Church structures that were approved by the government up and going, with new churches being built all over the city. A cutting-edge seminary, a printing press to print Gospel texts distributed across the whole of China, professional schools, contacts with Catholic universities and institutions all around the world.

In 2004 the Holy See finally recognised that Jin, as most illegally ordained bishops in China in those years, had no intention of building a national “autarchic” Church which the regime dreamt of. He agreed to be ordained bishop without the Pope’s approval in an attempt to ensure that ecclesiastical institutions did not disappear and that the administration of the sacraments continued so faithful could go on practicing their faith without hiding. This is why Rome recognised his Episcopal ordination as legitimate. He was made “Coadjutor” Bishop of Shanghai thanks to some canonical trickery, while Fan remained Titular Bishop of the diocese. Most importantly, he was supported in his attempts to find a successor who could be recognised as bishop both by the underground community and the “legitimate” community of the diocese of Shanghai. In 2005, Jin got 42-year-old Giuseppe Xing Wenzhi ordained as Auxiliary Bishop but he then pulled out in 2011. So the search for a new candidate resumed: everyone seemed to agree on Thaddeus Ma Daqin who was appointed bishop with the blessing of both Catholic communities. But the punitive measures taken against him shortly after his ordination have so far prevented him from exercising his Episcopal ministry.

Now that the two “patriarchs” who led the Shanghai Church from different sides of the lake so to speak, are gone, the current picture seems to be complicated by a number of factors. The case of the Shanghai diocese will be an insidious test to the potential resumption of closer contact between the Holy See and China now that the Church has a new Pope and China has a new President. The entities that control China’s religious policies are looking for ways out of a cul-de-sac created in great measure by their own rigid attitudes. In recent days there was talk of the national seminary in Shanghai reopening. Activities here came to a halt following Bishop Ma Daqin’s punishment. The most reasonable solution to this conundrum would be to allow the bishop to exercise his priestly duties in full as of June when the two year period of suspension from office will be up. But the situation is complicated further by the divisions that exist between the local clergy and the cold calculations of some of Shanghai’s priests. The very same priests who put psychological pressure on Ma Daqin before his ordination and who have continued to operate in cliques throughout this period of vacatio de facto in the Episcopal see, without showing much concern for their bishop, prevented as he is from exercising his ministry. The very same priests who may try to prove his illegitimacy if he returns. They may even accuse him of giving into the religious policies imposed by the Party.

At the end of the 80’s a Western missionary met Bishop Fan in his home, where he lived, under government surveillance. “Monsignor,” the missionary asked him: “We would like to help the Church in China as a whole. But it is difficult for us to reach our brothers who form part of illegal communities so we help others more. What is your view on this?” Fan’s reply was loud and clear and came from his pastor’s heart: “Goa head. They’re also part of the Church. But adopt a supernatural vision of things when you act, not a political one!” These words still apply to everyone today.